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News Analysis The US space agency's future success depends, in part, on how well it plans for the phase-out of the space shuttle over the next five years without sacrificing expertise and critical industrial suppliers needed for future endeavours, say experts at NASA's annual space operations summit.

Not only must NASA managers dispense with US$17 billion (A$22 billion) of shuttle program assets, they must do so while maintaining a robust enough program to fly about five times a year to finish the International Space Station by 2010, when the shuttle fleet is scheduled to be retired.

Currently, no other launch vehicles can carry the station's large modules and truss segments to orbit.

And that is just the beginning.

Phase-outs, as NASA has learned from the military's shutdown of its Titan 4 rocket program, can be very expensive, particularly to retain key personnel through the final missions.

The military, for example, paid critical team members a bonus of a year's salary to stay with the program through the final Titan 4's flights, scheduled for this year, says Dennis Granato, Northrop Grumman's director of missile defence and a member of the summit's industry panel.

The phase-out of the shuttle will also occur as NASA ramps up development of its new program to return astronauts to the Moon, the first step of the Vision for Space Exploration initiative President George W Bush outlined last year.

"This is about transforming the organisation into what we're going to need for decades to come," said NASA's associate administrator for space flight Bill Readdy at the closing of NASA's Integrated Space Operations Summit in Nashville.

"To make the space exploration vision a reality," added Readdy's deputy, Michael Kostelnik, "we have got to do the rights things with the space shuttle and return to flight and the space station. It starts right here."

NASA's Space Flight Leadership Council met behind closed doors to consider the recommendations of six panels and determine which, if any, to present to the NASA administrator for further action.

For example, the panel that studied shuttle mission issues determined that NASA this year can stop buying eight different shuttle elements, since the agency has all it needs to fly the 28 remaining missions currently forecast for space station completion. Those items include an aluminium-lithium alloy used to make the shuttle's external fuel tanks.

Another 11 items can be closed out next year, says panel chief David Throckmorton, deputy director of the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

Some of the phase-outs will have dramatic effects on the market, putting some suppliers out of business and potentially hiking prices substantially for remaining customers.

For example, when NASA stops buying ammonium perchlorate, the oxidiser used in the space shuttle solid rocket boosters, it will leave the military as the only other major customer.

The agency's prime concern, however, is how to retain its skilled workers and contractors, particularly during the gap between the shuttle's planned retirement and the first flights of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle.

"These folks should all have jobs in the follow-on programs. It's just keeping them on long enough to get there," said Boeing's Andrew Aldrin, the son of Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin.